Saturday, October 20, 2012

Here's your weekly offering of Breakfast Links – our favorite links of the week via Twitter, including links to other blogs, web sites, photos, and articles you won't want to miss.
• 19th c. French ladies jumping from hot-air balloons, inventing parachutes, & starting restaurants.
• 'Bad Form in Dress', WWI government poster that advised women not to splash out on frocks during wartime.
• "The Jelly-House Maccaroni" print from 1772, and what the heck that means.
• Collops of Rabbits, with Champagne wine: 18th c. recipe with modern version, too.
• A walk through long-gone London: A room to let in old Aldergate.
• Stunning emerald green silk velvet & gold 1920s shawl coat.
• Mary of Guelders, 15th c. Queen of Scotland.
• What not to wear to high school in the 1960s.
• Victims of Caroline of Brunswick's funeral, 1821.
• Nicolas Culpeper, 17th c. gardener & writer, in Spitalfields, London.
• Stumbling over a 200-year-old hotel - complete with gardens! - in the middle of Manhattan.
• 'One large frying pan & three paires of Irish stockings': what did pilgrims pack for the New World?
• Atlantic earthquakes.
• The corn doctor: 18th c. foot care.
• Voting with their feet: how shoemaking helped win the 1872 presidential election.
• Account of the London Beer Flood, which took place this week in 1814.
• Not to be outdone: the Molasses Flood in Boston, MA, 1919.
• President Teddy Roosevelt reportedly drank over a gallon of coffee a day.
• Thing of wonder: a 4,000 year old yew tree at Crowhurst Surrey, complete with a Georgian door.
• Jane Austen's beloved friend, Madame Lefroy, & the story told by her obituaries.
• Comfortable corsets of 1893.
• Mannequin morgue at the Chicago Museum - a year-round haunted house.
• Pair of Marie-Antoinette's shoes fetch 50,000 euros at auction.
• Lady Angela Forbes on her debut in Society, 1895.
• The Hasty Marriage, 1772.
• Alaska P. Davidson, the FBI's first female Special Agent.
• Historic doll's houses as miniature windows on the past.
• Women fought long and hard for the right to vote - honor their legacy by making sure your vote counts this Election Day.Crave more than a once-a-week update? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates every day.

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.